Brendan Carr, one of five commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission, says he doesn’t believe there is any other path than a ban on Tiktok.
In an interview with Axios, Carr states that there “simply isn’t a world in which you could come up with sufficient protection on the data that you could have sufficient confidence that it’s not finding its way back into the hands of the [Chinese Communist Party].”
NEW—Members of Congress seek answers from #TikTok after determining that it made apparently false or misleading statements to bipartisan Committee staff.
“information TikTok provided…appears to be untrue or misleading, including that TikTok does not track U.S. user locations” pic.twitter.com/TiWRDFfX5J
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) November 22, 2022
Breitbart outlines the dangers TikTok poses to America, breaking them up into three main categories – teens, national security and election meddling.
While the Chinese version of TikTok limits the amount of time teens under 14 can use the app and introduces educational content such as science experiments and museums, Tiktok in the U.S. promotes content and lifestyles that are increasingly dangerous to teens. Tiktok trends, such as cooking chicken in Nyquil and imbibing large amounts of Benadryl, have led to teen hospitalizations and even deaths.
In terms of national security, Carr outlined to Axios that with more than 200 million downloads in the U.S. alone, Tiktok’s ownership by a Chinese parent company poses a security risk. He explained that Tiktok “operates as a very sophisticated surveillance app” and pulls “everything from search and browsing history, potentially keystroke patterns, biometrics, including faceprints and voiceprints.
In 2020, President Trump placed a ban on TikTok in the U.S. with an executive order. The ban was revoked by the Biden administration the following year. Biden said that the administration should use an “evidence-based approach” to see if apps such as Tiktok pose a risk to U.S. national security.
Concerns have also arisen about Tiktok’s power to meddle in U.S. elections. During the midterm elections, TikTok said it had set up a dedicated election center to “moderate posts and flag credible information.”
In an interview with Breitbart, Emily Jashinsky, culture editor at The Federalist, noted that Tiktok builds a profile on you as you’re swiping through it. It logs the number of times users spend viewing videos and the types of videos and profiles users observe. According to Jashinsky, if the Communist Party asks for their data, ByteDance (owner of Tiktok) is legally required to give it to them. “TikTok’s launching of an Election Center is a threat to national security,” she said.
